The largest cryptocurrency by market cap plunged sharply and
suddenly early Thursday, falling from near $4,000 a coin to below
$3,800. At last look, it was trading down 5.4% near $3,807. Its
rivals ether
(-11.8%), litecoin
(-10.2%), and bitcoin
cash (-12.9%) were under even more significant pressure.

"After Bitcoin's leap to $4,000 earlier this week, it seems that
we're now seeing a reversal of this surge which in turn, is also
causing XRP and Ethereum's price to fall," Mati Greenspan, a
senior market analyst at eToro, the global multi-asset investment
platform, said.

"While Bitcoin was unable to hold on to Sunday's momentum, it's
important to remember that this price decline still remains
within the broader $3,000 - $5,000 range, meaning the
significance of this should not be overstated."

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And while no one has been able to pinpoint exactly what was
behind the drop, Timothy Tam, the cofounder and CEO of the Hong
Kong-based crypto research firm CoinFi,
told Bloomberg he noticed someone transferred 40,000 ether
into an exchange about an hour before the sell-off occurred.

2018 was a rough year for investors in the digital-coin space.
The crypto boom from 2017 turned into a bust, wiping out hundreds
of billions of dollars in market cap as investors suffered
through sharp and sudden drops in the market. Data from the
crypto site CoinMarketCap.com showed
the total crypto universe peaked with a market cap of $813.9
billion on January 7, 2018, and that was down to just $103.9
billion by December 13.